Which is why it is very neat that at least in KDE 3.2x (I am using Mandrake 10.0, now) and even prior point releases you could tell the Kicker (panel) to either show all the tool bar's icons of an open app across all desktops, or just for the current desktop.
I think it might be worth it for people to review the book "Killer Windows Utilities":
"Published: Que, Indianapolis, USA, 1992 (ISBN: 0880229322)"
which I bought around March or so of 1992. I believe that the then proliferation of desktop add-ons to DOS and which were more functional than windoze 3.1 gave ms the pain and desire to make the NEXT release of windoze have a BOLT-ON interface that would be difficult if not impossible to displace. Hence, windoze 95.
That said, I am SURE there is a fine and great TON of prior art. If it doesn't torpedo the patents ms is trying to stealthily (until the last possible moment) get awarded, then the book and the types of products it bundled on 3 floppies will at least get ms laughed at a bit, or more.
I suggest that from NOW on the patent process be revamped so that anyone or any company trying to ram or slide a patent through has to publish it on their website, publish it in a tech paper and a tech publication (magazine, widely distributed), and then not get ANY USPTO sanction for it until maybe a six-month window or a year has past.
This could give time for ALL those who might later be able to prove they created the prior art, either to defend themselves and prevent ms and companies like ms from hijacking product ideas, OR to ensure that an idea that is CopyLefted, Open Sourced or otherwise "bequeathed" or "handed" to the public REMAINS globally, publicly, irrevocably available to all users and modifiers.
As for seeking and being awarded a patent for double-clicking on a PDA button... that is STUPID. Plenty of prior art examples exist from watches and calculators, to 8-track and cassete players.
Watches: Press and hold for 1, 3, or more seconds to invoke a feature or to change the time;
Calculators: press a "Shift" or "2nd" button to invoke an overlay to recall or to substitute a stored (cached) number for processing in a subsequent calculation;
8-Track and cassettes players: Press the REW button lightly and the rewind is not a full-auto rewind. Whether or not patented, it demonstrates that some common-sense stepsaving button (physical or virtual) should be unpatentable.
Even some of the very old telephones since the late 70's and early 80's had switchook/call waiting: Press quickly or maybe 1/2 second, switch calls. Press long enough, drop the call or hang up on one party.
Aren't there any games, lawn mowers, kitchen appliances (Puree, whip, blend), hair dryers and other umpteen number of devices that, while not being "PDAs", exhibit "the obvious" and unpatentability or non-patent-worthiness of user interfaces that don't deserve to be in a corporate war chest?
Copyrighting also is not really a solution. All the corporations now have to do is "triple-whammy" their product releases: Patent, Trademark, Copyright", and maybe more. Left unchecked, it will become impossible, or maybe very expensive, to improve upon or even get around silly patents, specious or dubious copyrights (registered or not), and so on.
"The vast majority of the most used generic Windows apps have Linux equivalents now - in particular OpenOffice.org is a good-enough drop in replacement for MS-Office, Mozilla.Firefox is better than IE, Evolution is comparable to most of the features of outlook and Mozilla/Thunderbird/Lots of others is more than good enough for Outlook Express and so on."
Well, I sure hope this can encompass Lotus SmartSuite. Or, I hope that Mozilla and the underlying code/widgets being added seemingly daily will allow for great duplication of Lotus Approach. I would like in LinuxLand/Open Source a WYSIWYG database that does:
--Forms (that can also contain chart widgets and cross tab widgets alongside data
--Charts that can drill down to the underlying data and, without changing the found dataset, display related data graphically, dynamically, and so on
--Reports that dispense with the Paradox/Abscess "banding"... reports need to be WYSIWYG, too, and more like the approach found in Lotus Approach
--Crosstabs that function and that print nicely, preferably with the ability to render a relevant chart alongside the crosstab. If the datasets are simple enough, it should be able to project and print relevancies
--Worksheets that can support drill-through and allow copying and pasting or updating of like-structured data in the same or other databases that the user has access and edit rights to
--Context-sensitive Edit and design mode palettes that are NON-MODAL. I cannot express in polite words the non-sensical, short-sighted, restrictive hand some developers use by forcing MODAL paletts or dialogs on the users. This needs to stop.
--Relational joins, schema engineering and built-in documentation and printing with costs, to-dos and more so the dev team or individual can manage the thing sensibly
--Quick, ad-hoc development of forms with tabbed panels that offer interesting and relevant views to same and similar datasets that form the main view.
--WYSIWYG field, object, and form editing.
--Real-time data editing to and FROM the Web, all in one package, not broken up into costly desktop, client/server, & web editions.
--Stand-alone executable/runtime so that end users and edit data and submit it for synchronization, or to be able to use it stand-alone
--Ability to restructure the schema and tables without taking down any tables. Joins I can understand, if a joined table is opened, though.
--User accounts internal or based on Linux user password file/s
--Under $200, Open Source, dual-licensed, and
Am I asking too much? Maybe, but let's get this thing rolling in a CVS, maybe based on Mozilla, teamed up with the Kexi project (www.kexiproject.org), and tie in ALL the major and even a goodly number of the minor distro makers so that Fortune X00 Enterprises can do a double-take and sign up to buy or sponsor the project and not try to strangle it in IP litigation "thick brown baloney".
(No, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice won't work for me. I need something like Lotus Approach, WordPro,and 1-2-3, but with an INTUITIVE database. SO & OO.o DO NOT HAVE THAT. Period. Not like Lotus SmartSuite. I need a word processor that has a tabbed metaphor for multi-file documents and that will let me keep my page orientation of each embedded document, unadulterated. I need my section and division markers to be tabs, not annoying ms-copying LINES mucking up the page or footer area.)
No, I have tried Omnis Studio, and it's not for the end-user, especially given the price points and the need to know some programming. I've seen Paradox years ago and it's too powerful for my needs. I'm not paying for nor using for free Abscess. Filemaker is nice, but too "Maccy" for me, in that it is only recently getting a facelift to "modernize" the forms view (I never liked the rolodex object...)
I am a Lotus SmartSuite fan and am deeply disappointed that there is not enough demand for IBM and Lotus to port it natively (nevermind the IP matters/excuses)
Growing weary of some "invalid license" rubbish from Crossdresser after I simply deleted my.cxoffice dir and some other related paths and after I tried to reinstall it from my Mandrake 10 Power Pack (retail), I decided to once again try WINE. Can I say "Wine is NOT Exemplary"?
I struck upon an idea:
"What if I graft my 'win' folder created by the Win4Lin install and place it in the/var/lib or other path that wine is expecting to find it in?"
So, after running WINE and seeing where the config files want to find windoze98, I renamed the WINE-created folder and placed my folder that I have repeatedly used with mainly successful recoveries and reinstalls since 2000 or 2001.
The Lotus SmartSuite installer behaved very normally except for the EULA page and except for the "x" boxes being less than crisp. The features selections went fine, and the the install seemed at the end to hange and wait forever, doing the same in Crossdresser, but not in W4L or native windoze98.
SmartSuite DID install, but the result was a horrid, detestable, crying shame. There are soooo many convolusions of.dll placements that I am EXTREMELY suspicious as to why this was done. Maybe in the old days, Lotus realized it was too easy to just take the wretched 28-floppy install of SmartSuite for windows 3.1 and w95 and copy the final image from disk to CD or to slave the source as a target disk and then copy the contents over. That is what I did when my machine would crash. I'd go to my backup disk and recover.
However, it no longer is so simple, thanks to the damned mainly-anti-piracy registry. I honestly feel the registry is mainly to confound and confute app-snagging pirates. BTW, I PAID for my SmartSuite disks...
ANyway, Unless Lotus, IBM, & CodeWeavers get together and work this out, a LOT of IBM customers who probably would switch to Linux and want to drag along their year 2000, 2001, or 2002 SmartSuite investment will be furious-- furious at themselves for NOT generating demand, and furious that IBM wasn't proctive.
SmartSuite, if upgraded to 2004 standards, could trounce StarOffice and OpenOffice--if, iff, ifff you like Lotus Approach, the end-user, non-developer, non-geek WYSIWYG relational database front end, and if you like Lotus WordPro and Lotus 1-2-3. I do. Hence, I keep upgrading Win4Lin or figuring out a way to make my paid-for copy fo Win4Lin work across upgrades.
The complications with this upgrade hell between KDE, the Kernels and Mandrake and NeTraverse are making me VERY interested in finding out more about loopback or Linux-inside-Linux distros so I could avoid thinking about "which kernel, gcc, libthis.so, libthat.so, kde or whatever" anymore.
I can imagine the hell companies must be going through when they upgrade kernels and find out the one they chose was premature, and not supported by NeTraverse or that they should have been more connected to NeTraverse before choosing a kernel...
This is slightly off-topic, I imagine, but brings up an issue I and others experience, or ponder regularly.
I think that once a person or a company comes up with and registers a distinct, never-before-used domain name, that name should forever belong to the person or company.
I am so sick of seeing domain names transferred to registrars who then assume ownership and the ability to charge ("what the market will bear") for something they DID NOT CREATE.
It does not cost that much at all to keep a "last-known/owned-by" database that enables the creator or owner of a domain name to get it back without re-registration and extortion hassles.
One reason for suggesting this is that a person or a company may simply go out of business. It's one thing to have the ISP drop their site, but if the domain name itself is not in use past it's last paid-for timeframe, it should just be made "dormant". Once the domain is dormant, it should be marked as unavailable. We're not talking about vehicle vanity (license) plates, where there is a fixed amount of space on the plate, usually seven letters in most states (here in the US, at least).
Doing this would allow resumption of service/continuity for a person who had the misfortune of going out of business, but who sometime later can return to business or activity.
I probably am overlooking some important facts or distinctions, so I welcome critique or additions to this, other than "well how are domain name acquirers supposed to make a living?".
Is this, then, what the USPTO is willing to present itself as? When a corporation (or an individual with lots of money) can simply patent something this ludicrous (as it seems)--a floorplan incorporating many time-tested, market-driven arrangements, something is patently stupid going on in DC.
I guess (ignoring that the USPTO usually rejects patents on lewd, sexual, or indecent devices, or until a few years ago did so) someone will step up and patent "Marathon 69", coupled with:
--sound effects, --a physical apparatus to alleviate lockjaw, --a bathing-assistant which keeps the bed or floor as dry as possible --a defecant remover, disinfector and decomposer/composter/reconstitutor with rapid nutrient turnaround,
Question. How (cost and tech) effective would it be to "blurr" a target's overall memories.
I'm not talking wholesale brain-drain, but just render the person useless for a position. Say, making a bad or corrupt official have to be replaced. Maybe they can play with Legos, build model kits, or even run in MD charity races, or even be a taxi driver. But, if this were applied on a greater scale, could entire populaces be rendered "feckless" or "submissive".
I suppose, OTOH, this might be a useful way to reduce the suffering of psychologically tormented (hey, leave me out of it...) individuals. But, then, probably existing drugs exist, tho some VC out there might see new patent warchest implications for funding such a project: Project Hazy Holo".
I guess not. That was a "flaw" in windows NT, a divide by zero error. It left the USS Yorktown in a condition what we Sailors (I served 84-88) call "broke dick". The Yorktown's power plant, electrical mains, etc, went off line and the ship went "underway with no way on" (adrift). How embarrassing! The USN prides itself on having never lost more than 2 nuclear subs (compared to then-Soviet/USSR/Russia), had a few carrier fires, lost the Pueblo, and often lost electrical power (dropping the load) on some types of ships. But, to have a C3-level operating system from a mega corporation be badly programmed and at the ready to be deployed fleet-wide is infuriating.
That steam let off/that said...
I honestly fail to understand why many or most uninitiated people think that Open Source applications **must** remain Open Source. They don't, if you don't want to abide by the provisions in the GPL and other licenses.
Just because the Government may use GPL/GNU/ Open Source apps does not mean the apps cannot be encrypted, compiled, and locked down. The general code could be escrowed, kept public--mainly for auditing purposes. The critical functionality can be designed INHOUSE and implemented as needed.
We, the public, do not **need** to see the derivatives--particularly if that new work is sensitive. We just need to know that the stuff works and that the money from our taxes is being spent improving software that is not owned by a megalomaniacal corporation that is so powerful that it conceivable could break down the military and destroy any given nation's defenses.
That the derivatives of Open Source are developed in-house with some outside expertise from motivated developers (maybe they can get tax breaks in exchange for useful code?) means the government as a vastly larger talent pool from which to bid or directly draw candidates for a project. The bidding can be as LOW as HELL, as long as the candidates' work/portfolios bear out their claimed skills.
"Open Source" does NOT always, nor should it, mean "Open Secrets". The open code can be the main part of the rail car; the secret stuff could be the hitches that keep the cars together; the policies would be the rails keeping the trains on track.
The public wins, microsoft loses. So what. They'll have better security by non-pecuniary developers saving their bacon as what would go to government or military projects would be work that can be fixed by ANYONE skilled and who possesses clearance or who can be cleared to work on the code.
Please, think 3-dimensionally/non-pecuniary. Try to think outside the current econo-industrial regime.
A couple of things (maybe more than a couple) come to mind. I numbered them in the order that you presented two which piqued my curiosity:
2. "But it would be FAR easier to remove dormant nano-bots than it would be to put them in."
Well, what if the subject also had been injected with some quasi-metal polymer that is activate by the bot? Sure, these comments easily can fall into the realm of "sci-fi", but most sci-fi and reality tend to merge. SO, if a polymer is near the nano-bots, and the bots are designed to self-destruct when tampered with, then part of their reaction could be to (depending on the value of or the need to destroy that subject) activate the polymer such that it and the polymer become an irregularly-shaped mess that is far more destructive to the host/subject. (I may have "lost it", but I'll pause at this point on this paragraph...)
1. "Memory is stored holographically so it could not seek out memory without doing massive damage, probably killing you."
Forgive my naiive approach or analogy, especially since it's been quite some since I've studied biology or chemistry... Just *how* 'holographic' are memories? I presume that just as tears on the eyes reflect light in different ways, the tears are matter, and the light is energy, albeit, weak energy. A sufficiently strong tool could manipulate those light waves for good or bad.
So, as for seeking out and manipulating the "energy" can't that be done destructively by some broadband-based disruption of the cells? I don't know if experiences induced and events recalled can be tracked via dyes or markers, but if so, then these things might help isolate memories and selectively enhance or suppress them. Aren't there existing drugs that do that, but cause more general loss or enhancement?
Slight segue: It's profound and bizarre that the pharmaceutical industry is infused with so much cash to solve problems that can be resolved by our "just getting closer to basics". For instance:
--Ovarian cancer: the pill/excess or manipulated hormones --Breast cancer: systematic, market-induced reduction or near complete cessation of natural, wholesome breastfeeding --Prostate/colo-rectal cancer (in men): too much cholesterol, fat, grease (meat) --Skin cancers (mainly in those of lighter pigments): TOO MUCH SUN
If we get women off of the pills, patches, and subcutaneous time-release capsules, there would be an near-term explosion in births, but then cutting back has implications in terms of fewer tax payers, some might argue. Pharmaceuticles would flail and seethe.
If we get more women than ever in the past 25 years to resume (umm, start, since there's a different set of women of birthing age) breast feeding, the dairy industry would probably have a cow AND cry over spilled milk.
If men and women draMATICALLY cut back on consumption of red meat, the cattle and beef councils will have cows and have a major beef.
If we put the fear of SUN in the lighter-pigmented or cancer-prone segments of society, the tourism and travel industries will be beaming and bristling with anger.
Maybe this nanotechnology will blow up in our faces and FORCE us to take stock of what's relevant and what is wasting money.
Well, if we have a divide by 0 error again from ms, such as what happened to the USS Yorktown, the USAF just might switch. Especially if one of their orbital launchers crashes down near or on a population center.
I would like to argue that Open Source would have the advantage since the code is openly readable and the military programmers (aside from the ms arguments "you're displacing business programmers/employers with military programmers/personnel...). However, since code that the US and probably other governments use can be considered a military asset, it may be the case that ms already has surrendered coded to certain branches of the government.
Is it not plausible that the CIA, FBI and other unnamed (as in hidden in some deep hole of a budget) agencies already provide themselves access either through legal or gray-area methods?
The trick will be for Open Source developers to envision things the government needs and provide them at a breakneck pace that ms cannot cope with except to provide gratis services AND goods. Eventually, with a loss of income stream, the ms machine will have its bacon and eggs (tallywhacker) hit by the fly swatter.
So, Open Sourcers, we have to learn ALL we can about the NON-classified applications and develop competing, Open Source, extensible, secure, robust, and worthwhile applications for those generals and colonels and admirals who want their outlook features, but better than what they already have. All the innovations and standard features in KDE and Gnome and other GNU/Linux interfaces eclipse the purported "innovations" we see native to w2k and xp. Let's provide them an Open Source exchange and outlook in exchange for the current tools they have: lookOUT and HEXpee.
Fall in for muster/muster on station. Turn to; commence ship's work!
What could be scarier is "accelerated mitosis" that looks natural however bizarre. This could be a new type of bio-weapon, or genocidal tool, too.
Could the nano bots linger dormant for months? These might make effective "prisoner control" mechanisms. The mere THOUGHT of rioting could cause nausea, dizziness, constipation, diarrhea, loss of sexual appetite, tension, or with whatever "capabilities" the makers want to endow the bots with.
Maybe totally docile societies could be engineered ro retrofitted. Borgification (less the weapons and deflector shields) might be in store for vast segments of humanity in under 50 years...
The future may become more interesting...and terrifying.
Could this technology be abused to seek out certain cells associated with memory, pleasure, pain, etc.
Imagine if these nanotech bots could lie dormant, awaiting activation by an authority or a torturer. People could be abducted, injected, released, and then tortured into complying with all sorts of illegal requests (get us a copy of that.025 millimeter fab/chip; give us the secret sauce recipe...)
Alternatively, this could be used to somehow little by little nudge the lifespan of cells upward a few percentage points...
Some office suites seem to use OpenGL or some card-related code. I know there was a tech support issue regarding redrawing some widgets in one of the SmartSuite applications. It was traced down to refreshing or something in the video processor board.
That said, I want to know if Transgaming's software would support running Lotus SmartSuite.
Is there anyone who's tried to load ms office or Lotus SmartSuite or some complex app that is not specifically a game?
Or, would I be better off using Win4Lin 5.0? It's time for me to upgrade from W4L 3.0, since it is not supported beyond 2.4.18, which I use with KDE 3.1 via 2 or 3 layers of MDK upgrades (8.2, 9.1, 9.2...Now, I need to dump the legacy kernel and go clean-current...)
Hmmm... Off Topic, ehhh. MLH, do you agree with my post being modded down?
Here we have TWO technology-related stories, one with a civilian seemingly trouncing some NASA activities, and another in the wake or 9/11 and BILLIONS of tax dollars spent improving--supposedly-- US security.
Oy vey (spelling?). Off Topic. That should BE a topic of concern.
And, HIS craft is less tech than the Airbus A-319, I suspect. Fortunately, the Airbus wasn't capable of ascenting into upper atmosphere.
Hmm... after thinking over my own questions below, I now am wondering if someone managed to hijack the auto-pilot and nudge the plan slightly off course. If they did, this implies they also deceived/deflected the attention of the ATC AND the USAF radar operators. If this can happen or DID happen, we've got some pretty scary questions to ask:
--Do you want to fly? --Will your flight be inverted zero-g and steered toward Terra Firma? --Will your flight be steered into a flight of birds? --Will you be steered into the path of another aircraft?
Lightly, tho...
So, Melville, welcome you two new assistants! That is, if you think you can overlook their recent landing. ===
http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_stor y_ 172132003.html == Two Northwest Airlines Airbus pilots might be the next runners-up for tourist flights into outer upper/space/out-of-airspace...
An inquiring mind (mine) wants to know a few things.
After a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, the passengers were detained for some 3 hours, interrogated, after being ordered to shut their window covers.
So, does anyone know what is so special about Ellsworth that the windows were ordered shut? This does not seem to be the case (ordering shuttered windows) at Portland and some other bases sharing a border with commercial airports.
Could the crew and or passengers have been interrogated as to whether they shot footage or filmed any of the base during descent? Did the military confiscate their cameras, or merely look at each frame and scan every laptop for pictures of the base (or look for quickly-hidden compact flash or other media disks), or did the military fly out with them on the short hop over the hill, ensuring that NO-ONE shot any pix or opened their window covers?
Even more importantly, how can the pilot and first officer of a plane with probably more computing power than a space shuttle land 5 miles off course and onto a MILITARY base, unless they turned off the electronics or doubted the electronics, and landed by VFR, or Visual Flight Rules. And, even MORE telling, does this say the the FAA and the flight controllers were asleep at the controls?
Can such a thing happen again? Will this prompt the military to "paint" commercial aircraft to sternly warn them to get back on course? Why did not the military simultaneously call the plane AND the air traffic control tower and vector the commercial plane away? Doesn't this say that even after 9/11, the military and commercial air traffic control systems, after billions of dollars in equipment and upgrades, STILL/one again let down the public?
This kind of "flight of fancy" would give a whole new meaning to "ST (space travel): Deep Space 9"
LOL
How many flights to send up 50 RealDolls or a fab facility?
If they want to avoid pregnancy in upper space, they better send up some male, female, and transgender RealDolls. They can withstand up to 200 or more degrees, but I guess now, someone can toss a few of these expensive (about $5gs each) out the airlock. To blow these plastiques off the pad and into orbit, the $5G cost will feel like 50,000 Gs to a budget manager. I wonder what a floating RealDoll would look like tumbling through the modules of the space station. Could one of these descend unaided, and survive if provided a good angle of insertion into the atmosphere... Let's see: The angle of the dangle...
Maybe NASA will send up some 8-track, Soft Cell vinyls, a turntable, and have the crew and pax struttin' to "Sex Dwarf, isn't it nice, luring Disco Dollies to a life of vice? SEX DWARF! Isn't it NICE, lurid disco DOLLIES in a life of ICE?" (simulate the sound of the RealDoll fanny being slapped. Sorry, Marc (Almond). Then, back down on Terra Firma, another Soft Cell song comes to mind: "I wanted to tell her, but I stuck to my lies." Oh, wait, that was "Ministry".
Now, NASA won't need anymore bronze or golden plaques affixed to space craft such as Pioneer and Voyager. Just have the ion drive craft trail a few of these as "humor cards", to lighten the desire of any intellengince to visit us with ill intentions. They can add a.wav file, in binary, too, which gestures,
"Say 'hello' to 'Dolly' and to 'Jo'".
In space, no one will here these dolls scream...when the aliens perform "Deconstruction by JoJo" on these dolls.
An inquiring mind (mine) wants to know a few things.
After a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, the passengers were detained for some 3 hours, interrogated, after being ordered to shut their window covers.
So, does anyone know what is so special about Ellsworth that the windows were ordered shut? This does not seem to be the case (ordering shuttered windows) at Portland and some other bases sharing a border with commercial airports.
Could the crew and or passengers have been interrogated as to whether they shot footage or filmed any of the base during descent? Did the military confiscate their cameras, or merely look at each frame and scan every laptop for pictures of the base (or look for quickly-hidden compact flash or other media disks), or did the military fly out with them on the short hop over the hill, ensuring that NO-ONE shot any pix or opened their window covers?
Even more importantly, how can the pilot and first officer of a plane with probably more computing power than a space shuttle land 5 miles off course and onto a MILITARY base, unless they turned off the electronics or doubted the electronics, and landed by VFR, or Visual Flight Rules. And, even MORE telling, does this say the the FAA and the flight controllers were asleep at the controls?
Can such a thing happen again? Will this prompt the military to "paint" commercial aircraft to sternly warn them to get back on course? Why did not the military simultaneously call the plane AND the air traffic control tower and vector the commercial plane away? Doesn't this say that even after 9/11, the military and commercial air traffic control systems, after billions of dollars in equipment and upgrades, STILL/one again let down the public?
Re:I'm not sure how conclusive this could be...
on
RF-Blocking Wallpaper
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Is there any transparent aluminum that can substitute for glass? Or, is transparent aluminum just in Star Trek?
No, imagine when the feds realize that aluminum or steel structure home are interfering with their desire to electronically vacuum sweep a home, particularly if an after-market kit permits an owner to scan their home from across the street and tune it such that they keep internal signals from getting out, or better yet, the kit subsitutes plain-language text for random or other assembled text, such as passages from the Bible, Moby's Dick, Charlotte's Web, and such.
THAT is a product IDEA I have just thought of. I submit it to the public under Creative Commons, CopyLeft, CopyRight, and any other new, patents-negating rights-sharing scheme available to the world. If you who maybe be reading this with a productization-minded interest think you can enjoin readers or myself from this idea, you are WRONG!
Help or leave a product alone, we don't need stinking patents covering simple, easy-to-reproduce, non-novel ideas just because somebody wants to make a friggin' BUCK
Re:then put the damn phone on VIBRATE and call bac
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RF-Blocking Wallpaper
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How about this:
The cell phone carriers work out a plan with owners of hospitals, theaters, museums and the like so that merely ENTERING the premises forces the phone to go to vibrate if it is designed to vibrate, and silent if there is no vibrator. Alternatively, the phone can emit ONE chirp, regardless of the mode it's in, then the carrier can auto-respond to the caller, stating:
Please stand by for up to 25 seconds; we have chirped your party and you should allow them 25-45 seconds to move to a place suitable to unmask this phone call.
If the party is wheelchair bound, or is sitting on the toilet in a public place and feels embarrassed to answer whilst taking, ummm, issuing a dump, then the caller could have an autoresponder plan to let them hit a pre-designated/customized button code to send the caller a request that they give x number of minutes for the called party to reply. This way, if you are in a theater enjoying a movie, you can hit the button telling the caller to wait 45 minutes or so. This is useful in packed venues when you are conscientious enough to not crawl over patrons in those annoyingly-tight rows forcing people to scrunch up 45 degrees in the direction of travel of someone coming or going.
THIS I MY IDEA: I submit it to the public under CREATIVE COMMONS and COPYLEFT.
Unless anyone legitimately has a patent dated PRIOR TO THIS POSTING, your future developments have NO bearing or restrictive powers over my RIGHT to build a product based on what I typed here, nor do you have ANY right to restrict others to whom I just conferred this idea.
Patents applicants must be FORCED to demonstrate that their "novel" idea will be truly novel by demonstrating that the idea cannot be duplicated in under 4 hours with run-of-the-mill/generic tools.
One way to deal with that is to "flechette" the target environment in advance of bombing. This works for and against anyone seeing such RF-blocking paper to be useful. It means that if you can flechetted a suspected target and then send over a satellite or other recon device, you can tip off your hand but force an opponent to have to move in extra defenses, move the to-be-targetted equipment, or be forced to shut it down, rendering it non-mission-capable for so long that other offensive operations can be reinforced with equipment, ordnance or devices that otherwise would be expended trying to flesh out and destroy targets.
This means anyone who can get close enough to a suspected shielded objective need only devote minimal resources on their OWN timetable to blow up said targets or flechette them, as if to torment those who think the wallpaper is going to be allowed an unfettered existence.
Now if the emissions to be masked are not normally detectable except from high orbit, then the attempt to "flechette" a target might be viable only to a satellite-owning power/nation.
David Syes, unholy Tactical Action Officer (unofficial)
They "cut" their product with bullshit, obfuscatory, no-rights-to-fix-the-code language.
C'mon, man, use your noggin. You KNOW microsoft code is buggy as hell. Circa 1996, they loaded, umm, BLOATED their Orifice (office) program with a game, Doom or Magic Carpet or something to chew up hard disk. This wasted enough space that it forced consumers and companies to buy bigger disks. Surely this had to be an act of collusion, for the disk makers would gain. OTOH, maybe it was NOT collusion, but they sure as hell gained.
As for introducing a stronger product, what do you thing about the always-chaning or subtley breaking file formats? Their coopting, raping, plundering, and shrugging off of some crucial W3C standards? It is because of this that many home-banking customers are screwed into using ms internet exploder.
I wonder if you were being tongue-in-cheek with your posting, but if not, you got my response.
I have been saying the same things, referring to windoze as "digital crack", calling it a Trojan horse, and accusing microsoft of "corporate homicide".
COME AND SUE ME, TOO, microshaft! Regime change begins AT HOME, and I call on ALL nations to review their policies of allowing cabinet officials and low-level functionaries and administrators to have power to hamstring their nations and governments and being BOUGHT OFF by microsoft. Reminds me of the dictators, gangsters and pirates, from Capone, Coll, Galante, Lansky, Nitti, and Lupo the Wolf, as well as Aragona, Baughe, Bodulgate (the reincarnated version is working at the behest of US intelligence communities, I suspect...), Boggs, (but not Chevalier de Grammant), Every, Gibbs, North, Cheng 1 (you retain a modern version in China), and others who could be fashioned into examples of microshafts global piracy hunt to steal the hearts and minds of governments and their treasures (independence, indigenous tech teams, sovereignty, privacy, and more...), and deny them their right to SLAP, KICK, IMPALE and dump microsoft on its ASS when the time comes to "just say no" to microshaft.
I have equated microshaft of being a risk to national, government, military, corporate, personal, AND global security. I have incessantly implored China to switch to Linux, or at least rid themselves of microsoft, for microsoft (yes, lower-casing/deprecation INTENTIONAL, as always, with me) is SURELY a USA National Security Agency (and other unamed/disavowed agencies') BACKDOOR into foreign governments.
Why the HELL ELSE has the US & UK (look to "common heritage") steadfastly played one hand publicly with "reigning in" irksomesoft and then letting the henchmen and leadership of ms get away with so MUCH CRAP.
It is obvious, fortunate, and the RIGHT THING that other agencies within even the US government, as well as other nations' governments, community and business infrastructure have openly and quiely brought Linux and Open Source into their view.
It is NOT enough to "mention" Linux to microsoft. You have to PURGE yourselves of that amoral, no, IMMORAL feckless, dirtwad whining corporation that is too greedy and stupid to straighten up its act.
I found it very heartening that in one poor neighborhood, somewhere in Brazil if I recall correctly, that even the rival GANGLORDS created a "no-fire" zone so that the children could make use of the Linux-based libraries set up to give them a future. That hardened criminals can recognize the value of not destroying children reinforces the feeling I have that were I stuck in a 2-person lifeboat faced with deciding to save an undeducated, poor, questionable individual, or giving that seat to gate, ballmer, or some henchman or henchwoman running, directing, advising, or supporting microsoft, I SURE A HELL not let them have that seat over an individual who has YET to cause or encourage global corruption, local destruction of mom and pop shops (forced them to pay for licensing even when they sold naked computers and never sold nor ever held any copies of windoze), lied to juries and courts (faked video testimony), interfered with the existence or operations of peripherals devices manufacturers, etc.
If ever there is an assault on CONUS for whatever reason, it should be a water and electromagnetic tsuname that takes out ms, its backups, and its future. The feckless little campus in redmond has wrought enough damage and it needs to be broken up, it's board enjoined from starting up or sitting on the board of any more technology companies, removed from banking, real estate, and entertainment, and more.
All too many fresh new players with fresh new ideas are anxiously awaiting their turn to play or work on the tech field. So long as they are stymied by microshaft, we shall NOT see innovation (contrary to the assertion of ms about their own "innovations" which really are mostly acquisitions rather than internal, original developments), we shall NOT see choice, and we shall NOT have stable computing.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why it is very neat that at least in KDE 3.2x (I am using Mandrake 10.0, now) and even prior point releases you could tell the Kicker (panel) to either show all the tool bar's icons of an open app across all desktops, or just for the current desktop.
I think it might be worth it for people to review the book "Killer Windows Utilities":
"Published: Que, Indianapolis, USA, 1992 (ISBN: 0880229322)"
which I bought around March or so of 1992. I believe that the then proliferation of desktop add-ons to DOS and which were more functional than windoze 3.1 gave ms the pain and desire to make the NEXT release of windoze have a BOLT-ON interface that would be difficult if not impossible to displace. Hence, windoze 95.
That said, I am SURE there is a fine and great TON of prior art. If it doesn't torpedo the patents ms is trying to stealthily (until the last possible moment) get awarded, then the book and the types of products it bundled on 3 floppies will at least get ms laughed at a bit, or more.
I suggest that from NOW on the patent process be revamped so that anyone or any company trying to ram or slide a patent through has to publish it on their website, publish it in a tech paper and a tech publication (magazine, widely distributed), and then not get ANY USPTO sanction for it until maybe a six-month window or a year has past.
This could give time for ALL those who might later be able to prove they created the prior art, either to defend themselves and prevent ms and companies like ms from hijacking product ideas, OR to ensure that an idea that is CopyLefted, Open Sourced or otherwise "bequeathed" or "handed" to the public REMAINS globally, publicly, irrevocably available to all users and modifiers.
As for seeking and being awarded a patent for double-clicking on a PDA button... that is STUPID. Plenty of prior art examples exist from watches and calculators, to 8-track and cassete players.
Watches: Press and hold for 1, 3, or more seconds to invoke a feature or to change the time;
Calculators: press a "Shift" or "2nd" button to invoke an overlay to recall or to substitute a stored (cached) number for processing in a subsequent calculation;
8-Track and cassettes players: Press the REW button lightly and the rewind is not a full-auto rewind. Whether or not patented, it demonstrates that some common-sense stepsaving button (physical or virtual) should be unpatentable.
Even some of the very old telephones since the late 70's and early 80's had switchook/call waiting: Press quickly or maybe 1/2 second, switch calls. Press long enough, drop the call or hang up on one party.
Aren't there any games, lawn mowers, kitchen appliances (Puree, whip, blend), hair dryers and other umpteen number of devices that, while not being "PDAs", exhibit "the obvious" and unpatentability or non-patent-worthiness of user interfaces that don't deserve to be in a corporate war chest?
Copyrighting also is not really a solution. All the corporations now have to do is "triple-whammy" their product releases: Patent, Trademark, Copyright", and maybe more. Left unchecked, it will become impossible, or maybe very expensive, to improve upon or even get around silly patents, specious or dubious copyrights (registered or not), and so on.
Regards,
David Syes
"The vast majority of the most used generic Windows apps have Linux equivalents now - in particular OpenOffice.org is a good-enough drop in replacement for MS-Office, Mozilla.Firefox is better than IE, Evolution is comparable to most of the features of outlook and Mozilla/Thunderbird/Lots of others is more than good enough for Outlook Express and so on."
Well, I sure hope this can encompass Lotus SmartSuite. Or, I hope that Mozilla and the underlying code/widgets being added seemingly daily will allow for great duplication of Lotus Approach. I would like in LinuxLand/Open Source a WYSIWYG database that does:
--Forms (that can also contain chart widgets and cross tab widgets alongside data
--Charts that can drill down to the underlying data and, without changing the found dataset, display related data graphically, dynamically, and so on
--Reports that dispense with the Paradox/Abscess "banding"... reports need to be WYSIWYG, too, and more like the approach found in Lotus Approach
--Crosstabs that function and that print nicely, preferably with the ability to render a relevant chart alongside the crosstab. If the datasets are simple enough, it should be able to project and print relevancies
--Worksheets that can support drill-through and allow copying and pasting or updating of like-structured data in the same or other databases that the user has access and edit rights to
--Context-sensitive Edit and design mode palettes that are NON-MODAL. I cannot express in polite words the non-sensical, short-sighted, restrictive hand some developers use by forcing MODAL paletts or dialogs on the users. This needs to stop.
--Relational joins, schema engineering and built-in documentation and printing with costs, to-dos and more so the dev team or individual can manage the thing sensibly
--Quick, ad-hoc development of forms with tabbed panels that offer interesting and relevant views to same and similar datasets that form the main view.
--WYSIWYG field, object, and form editing.
--Real-time data editing to and FROM the Web, all in one package, not broken up into costly desktop, client/server, & web editions.
--Stand-alone executable/runtime so that end users and edit data and submit it for synchronization, or to be able to use it stand-alone
--Ability to restructure the schema and tables without taking down any tables. Joins I can understand, if a joined table is opened, though.
--User accounts internal or based on Linux user password file/s
--Under $200, Open Source, dual-licensed, and
Am I asking too much? Maybe, but let's get this thing rolling in a CVS, maybe based on Mozilla, teamed up with the Kexi project (www.kexiproject.org), and tie in ALL the major and even a goodly number of the minor distro makers so that Fortune X00 Enterprises can do a double-take and sign up to buy or sponsor the project and not try to strangle it in IP litigation "thick brown baloney".
(No, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice won't work for me. I need something like Lotus Approach, WordPro,and 1-2-3, but with an INTUITIVE database. SO & OO.o DO NOT HAVE THAT. Period. Not like Lotus SmartSuite. I need a word processor that has a tabbed metaphor for multi-file documents and that will let me keep my page orientation of each embedded document, unadulterated. I need my section and division markers to be tabs, not annoying ms-copying LINES mucking up the page or footer area.)
No, I have tried Omnis Studio, and it's not for the end-user, especially given the price points and the need to know some programming. I've seen Paradox years ago and it's too powerful for my needs. I'm not paying for nor using for free Abscess. Filemaker is nice, but too "Maccy" for me, in that it is only recently getting a facelift to "modernize" the forms view (I never liked the rolodex object...)
Regards,
David Syes
Hmmm...
.cxoffice dir and some other related paths and after I tried to reinstall it from my Mandrake 10 Power Pack (retail), I decided to once again try WINE. Can I say "Wine is NOT Exemplary"?
/var/lib or other path that wine is expecting to find it in?"
.dll placements that I am EXTREMELY suspicious as to why this was done. Maybe in the old days, Lotus realized it was too easy to just take the wretched 28-floppy install of SmartSuite for windows 3.1 and w95 and copy the final image from disk to CD or to slave the source as a target disk and then copy the contents over. That is what I did when my machine would crash. I'd go to my backup disk and recover.
I am a Lotus SmartSuite fan and am deeply disappointed that there is not enough demand for IBM and Lotus to port it natively (nevermind the IP matters/excuses)
Growing weary of some "invalid license" rubbish from Crossdresser after I simply deleted my
I struck upon an idea:
"What if I graft my 'win' folder created by the Win4Lin install and place it in the
So, after running WINE and seeing where the config files want to find windoze98, I renamed the WINE-created folder and placed my folder that I have repeatedly used with mainly successful recoveries and reinstalls since 2000 or 2001.
The Lotus SmartSuite installer behaved very normally except for the EULA page and except for the "x" boxes being less than crisp. The features selections went fine, and the the install seemed at the end to hange and wait forever, doing the same in Crossdresser, but not in W4L or native windoze98.
SmartSuite DID install, but the result was a horrid, detestable, crying shame. There are soooo many convolusions of
However, it no longer is so simple, thanks to the damned mainly-anti-piracy registry. I honestly feel the registry is mainly to confound and confute app-snagging pirates. BTW, I PAID for my SmartSuite disks...
ANyway, Unless Lotus, IBM, & CodeWeavers get together and work this out, a LOT of IBM customers who probably would switch to Linux and want to drag along their year 2000, 2001, or 2002 SmartSuite investment will be furious-- furious at themselves for NOT generating demand, and furious that IBM wasn't proctive.
SmartSuite, if upgraded to 2004 standards, could trounce StarOffice and OpenOffice--if, iff, ifff you like Lotus Approach, the end-user, non-developer, non-geek WYSIWYG relational database front end, and if you like Lotus WordPro and Lotus 1-2-3. I do. Hence, I keep upgrading Win4Lin or figuring out a way to make my paid-for copy fo Win4Lin work across upgrades.
The complications with this upgrade hell between KDE, the Kernels and Mandrake and NeTraverse are making me VERY interested in finding out more about loopback or Linux-inside-Linux distros so I could avoid thinking about "which kernel, gcc, libthis.so, libthat.so, kde or whatever" anymore.
I can imagine the hell companies must be going through when they upgrade kernels and find out the one they chose was premature, and not supported by NeTraverse or that they should have been more connected to NeTraverse before choosing a kernel...
David Syes
This is slightly off-topic, I imagine, but brings up an issue I and others experience, or ponder regularly.
I think that once a person or a company comes up with and registers a distinct, never-before-used domain name, that name should forever belong to the person or company.
I am so sick of seeing domain names transferred to registrars who then assume ownership and the ability to charge ("what the market will bear") for something they DID NOT CREATE.
It does not cost that much at all to keep a "last-known/owned-by" database that enables the creator or owner of a domain name to get it back without re-registration and extortion hassles.
One reason for suggesting this is that a person or a company may simply go out of business. It's one thing to have the ISP drop their site, but if the domain name itself is not in use past it's last paid-for timeframe, it should just be made "dormant". Once the domain is dormant, it should be marked as unavailable. We're not talking about vehicle vanity (license) plates, where there is a fixed amount of space on the plate, usually seven letters in most states (here in the US, at least).
Doing this would allow resumption of service/continuity for a person who had the misfortune of going out of business, but who sometime later can return to business or activity.
I probably am overlooking some important facts or distinctions, so I welcome critique or additions to this, other than "well how are domain name acquirers supposed to make a living?".
David Syes
whorish?
Is this, then, what the USPTO is willing to present itself as? When a corporation (or an individual with lots of money) can simply patent something this ludicrous (as it seems)--a floorplan incorporating many time-tested, market-driven arrangements, something is patently stupid going on in DC.
I guess (ignoring that the USPTO usually rejects patents on lewd, sexual, or indecent devices, or until a few years ago did so) someone will step up and patent "Marathon 69", coupled with:
--sound effects,
--a physical apparatus to alleviate lockjaw,
--a bathing-assistant which keeps the bed or floor as dry as possible
--a defecant remover, disinfector and decomposer/composter/reconstitutor with rapid nutrient turnaround,
---(put something here)
Please add to the list...
David Syes
Ok, hehhe, I'll quite while I'm STILL behind.
Besides, various agencies may start to form an idea that I am out to create a weapon of mass forgetfulness.
Best Regards,
David Syes
Fair. Fair.
Question. How (cost and tech) effective would it be to "blurr" a target's overall memories.
I'm not talking wholesale brain-drain, but just render the person useless for a position. Say, making a bad or corrupt official have to be replaced. Maybe they can play with Legos, build model kits, or even run in MD charity races, or even be a taxi driver. But, if this were applied on a greater scale, could entire populaces be rendered "feckless" or "submissive".
I suppose, OTOH, this might be a useful way to reduce the suffering of psychologically tormented (hey, leave me out of it...) individuals. But, then, probably existing drugs exist, tho some VC out there might see new patent warchest implications for funding such a project: Project Hazy Holo".
Regards,
David Syes
That's fair.
Do you remember the USS Yorktown?????
I guess not. That was a "flaw" in windows NT, a divide by zero error. It left the USS Yorktown in a condition what we Sailors (I served 84-88) call "broke dick". The Yorktown's power plant, electrical mains, etc, went off line and the ship went "underway with no way on" (adrift). How embarrassing! The USN prides itself on having never lost more than 2 nuclear subs (compared to then-Soviet/USSR/Russia), had a few carrier fires, lost the Pueblo, and often lost electrical power (dropping the load) on some types of ships. But, to have a C3-level operating system from a mega corporation be badly programmed and at the ready to be deployed fleet-wide is infuriating.
That steam let off/that said...
I honestly fail to understand why many or most uninitiated people think that Open Source applications **must** remain Open Source. They don't, if you don't want to abide by the provisions in the GPL and other licenses.
Just because the Government may use GPL/GNU/ Open Source apps does not mean the apps cannot be encrypted, compiled, and locked down. The general code could be escrowed, kept public--mainly for auditing purposes. The critical functionality can be designed INHOUSE and implemented as needed.
We, the public, do not **need** to see the derivatives--particularly if that new work is sensitive. We just need to know that the stuff works and that the money from our taxes is being spent improving software that is not owned by a megalomaniacal corporation that is so powerful that it conceivable could break down the military and destroy any given nation's defenses.
That the derivatives of Open Source are developed in-house with some outside expertise from motivated developers (maybe they can get tax breaks in exchange for useful code?) means the government as a vastly larger talent pool from which to bid or directly draw candidates for a project. The bidding can be as LOW as HELL, as long as the candidates' work/portfolios bear out their claimed skills.
"Open Source" does NOT always, nor should it, mean "Open Secrets". The open code can be the main part of the rail car; the secret stuff could be the hitches that keep the cars together; the policies would be the rails keeping the trains on track.
The public wins, microsoft loses. So what. They'll have better security by non-pecuniary developers saving their bacon as what would go to government or military projects would be work that can be fixed by ANYONE skilled and who possesses clearance or who can be cleared to work on the code.
Please, think 3-dimensionally/non-pecuniary. Try to think outside the current econo-industrial regime.
David Syes
Hi gurps_npc,
A couple of things (maybe more than a couple) come to mind. I numbered them in the order that you presented two which piqued my curiosity:
2. "But it would be FAR easier to remove dormant nano-bots than it would be to put them in."
Well, what if the subject also had been injected with some quasi-metal polymer that is activate by the bot? Sure, these comments easily can fall into the realm of "sci-fi", but most sci-fi and reality tend to merge. SO, if a polymer is near the nano-bots, and the bots are designed to self-destruct when tampered with, then part of their reaction could be to (depending on the value of or the need to destroy that subject) activate the polymer such that it and the polymer become an irregularly-shaped mess that is far more destructive to the host/subject. (I may have "lost it", but I'll pause at this point on this paragraph...)
1. "Memory is stored holographically so it could not seek out memory without doing massive damage, probably killing you."
Forgive my naiive approach or analogy, especially since it's been quite some since I've studied biology or chemistry... Just *how* 'holographic' are memories? I presume that just as tears on the eyes reflect light in different ways, the tears are matter, and the light is energy, albeit, weak energy. A sufficiently strong tool could manipulate those light waves for good or bad.
So, as for seeking out and manipulating the "energy" can't that be done destructively by some broadband-based disruption of the cells? I don't know if experiences induced and events recalled can be tracked via dyes or markers, but if so, then these things might help isolate memories and selectively enhance or suppress them. Aren't there existing drugs that do that, but cause more general loss or enhancement?
Slight segue: It's profound and bizarre that the pharmaceutical industry is infused with so much cash to solve problems that can be resolved by our "just getting closer to basics". For instance:
--Ovarian cancer: the pill/excess or manipulated hormones
--Breast cancer: systematic, market-induced reduction or near complete cessation of natural, wholesome breastfeeding
--Prostate/colo-rectal cancer (in men): too much cholesterol, fat, grease (meat)
--Skin cancers (mainly in those of lighter pigments): TOO MUCH SUN
If we get women off of the pills, patches, and subcutaneous time-release capsules, there would be an near-term explosion in births, but then cutting back has implications in terms of fewer tax payers, some might argue. Pharmaceuticles would flail and seethe.
If we get more women than ever in the past 25 years to resume (umm, start, since there's a different set of women of birthing age) breast feeding, the dairy industry would probably have a cow AND cry over spilled milk.
If men and women draMATICALLY cut back on consumption of red meat, the cattle and beef councils will have cows and have a major beef.
If we put the fear of SUN in the lighter-pigmented or cancer-prone segments of society, the tourism and travel industries will be beaming and bristling with anger.
Maybe this nanotechnology will blow up in our faces and FORCE us to take stock of what's relevant and what is wasting money.
Hmmm... Falcon and the Snowman?
Well, if we have a divide by 0 error again from ms, such as what happened to the USS Yorktown, the USAF just might switch. Especially if one of their orbital launchers crashes down near or on a population center.
I would like to argue that Open Source would have the advantage since the code is openly readable and the military programmers (aside from the ms arguments "you're displacing business programmers/employers with military programmers/personnel...). However, since code that the US and probably other governments use can be considered a military asset, it may be the case that ms already has surrendered coded to certain branches of the government.
Is it not plausible that the CIA, FBI and other unnamed (as in hidden in some deep hole of a budget) agencies already provide themselves access either through legal or gray-area methods?
The trick will be for Open Source developers to envision things the government needs and provide them at a breakneck pace that ms cannot cope with except to provide gratis services AND goods. Eventually, with a loss of income stream, the ms machine will have its bacon and eggs (tallywhacker) hit by the fly swatter.
So, Open Sourcers, we have to learn ALL we can about the NON-classified applications and develop competing, Open Source, extensible, secure, robust, and worthwhile applications for those generals and colonels and admirals who want their outlook features, but better than what they already have. All the innovations and standard features in KDE and Gnome and other GNU/Linux interfaces eclipse the purported "innovations" we see native to w2k and xp. Let's provide them an Open Source exchange and outlook in exchange for the current tools they have: lookOUT and HEXpee.
Fall in for muster/muster on station. Turn to; commence ship's work!
David Syes
Is Richard Stallman Ken Starling, the Voyager hippie of Santa Cruz/Boulder Creek or is he a stranded Captain Braxton of the Federation Timeship Aeon?
When does ms fall? Or, rather, when is their HQ blasted from afar?
What could be scarier is "accelerated mitosis" that looks natural however bizarre. This could be a new type of bio-weapon, or genocidal tool, too.
Could the nano bots linger dormant for months? These might make effective "prisoner control" mechanisms. The mere THOUGHT of rioting could cause nausea, dizziness, constipation, diarrhea, loss of sexual appetite, tension, or with whatever "capabilities" the makers want to endow the bots with.
Maybe totally docile societies could be engineered ro retrofitted. Borgification (less the weapons and deflector shields) might be in store for vast segments of humanity in under 50 years...
The future may become more interesting...and terrifying.
Miss-Tur Yuk is MEEN. Mih-Stur Yhuk is GREEN.
Could this technology be abused to seek out certain cells associated with memory, pleasure, pain, etc.
.025 millimeter fab/chip; give us the secret sauce recipe...)
Imagine if these nanotech bots could lie dormant, awaiting activation by an authority or a torturer. People could be abducted, injected, released, and then tortured into complying with all sorts of illegal requests (get us a copy of that
Alternatively, this could be used to somehow little by little nudge the lifespan of cells upward a few percentage points...
Hi,
Some office suites seem to use OpenGL or some card-related code. I know there was a tech support issue regarding redrawing some widgets in one of the SmartSuite applications. It was traced down to refreshing or something in the video processor board.
That said, I want to know if Transgaming's software would support running Lotus SmartSuite.
Is there anyone who's tried to load ms office or Lotus SmartSuite or some complex app that is not specifically a game?
Or, would I be better off using Win4Lin 5.0? It's time for me to upgrade from W4L 3.0, since it is not supported beyond 2.4.18, which I use with KDE 3.1 via 2 or 3 layers of MDK upgrades (8.2, 9.1, 9.2...Now, I need to dump the legacy kernel and go clean-current...)
Thanks!
Hmmm... Off Topic, ehhh. MLH, do you agree with my post being modded down? Here we have TWO technology-related stories, one with a civilian seemingly trouncing some NASA activities, and another in the wake or 9/11 and BILLIONS of tax dollars spent improving--supposedly-- US security. Oy vey (spelling?). Off Topic. That should BE a topic of concern.
And, HIS craft is less tech than the Airbus A-319, I suspect. Fortunately, the Airbus wasn't capable of ascenting into upper atmosphere.
o rt hwest+lands+at+wrong+airport/v=2/SID=w/l=NSR/R=1/S IG=11sh6a9il/*-http://newsobserver.com/news/story/ 1356068p-7479373c.html
r y_ 172132003.html
= 51 4&e=13&u=/ap/20040620/ap_on_re_us/wrong_airpor t_1
Hmm... after thinking over my own questions below, I now am wondering if someone managed to hijack the auto-pilot and nudge the plan slightly off course. If they did, this implies they also deceived/deflected the attention of the ATC AND the USAF radar operators. If this can happen or DID happen, we've got some pretty scary questions to ask:
--Do you want to fly?
--Will your flight be inverted zero-g and steered toward Terra Firma?
--Will your flight be steered into a flight of birds?
--Will you be steered into the path of another aircraft?
Lightly, tho...
So, Melville, welcome you two new assistants! That is, if you think you can overlook their recent landing.
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Fixed and additional URL:
http://rds.yahoo.com/search/news/S=53720272/K=n
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http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstories_sto
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Two Northwest Airlines Airbus pilots might be the next runners-up for tourist flights into outer upper/space/out-of-airspace...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid
An inquiring mind (mine) wants to know a few things.
After a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, the passengers were detained for some 3 hours, interrogated, after being ordered to shut their window covers.
So, does anyone know what is so special about Ellsworth that the windows were ordered shut? This does not seem to be the case (ordering shuttered windows) at Portland and some other bases sharing a border with commercial airports.
Could the crew and or passengers have been interrogated as to whether they shot footage or filmed any of the base during descent? Did the military confiscate their cameras, or merely look at each frame and scan every laptop for pictures of the base (or look for quickly-hidden compact flash or other media disks), or did the military fly out with them on the short hop over the hill, ensuring that NO-ONE shot any pix or opened their window covers?
Even more importantly, how can the pilot and first officer of a plane with probably more computing power than a space shuttle land 5 miles off course and onto a MILITARY base, unless they turned off the electronics or doubted the electronics, and landed by VFR, or Visual Flight Rules. And, even MORE telling, does this say the the FAA and the flight controllers were asleep at the controls?
Can such a thing happen again? Will this prompt the military to "paint" commercial aircraft to sternly warn them to get back on course? Why did not the military simultaneously call the plane AND the air traffic control tower and vector the commercial plane away? Doesn't this say that even after 9/11, the military and commercial air traffic control systems, after billions of dollars in equipment and upgrades, STILL/one again let down the public?
This kind of "flight of fancy" would give a whole new meaning to "ST (space travel): Deep Space 9"
.wav file, in binary, too, which gestures,
LOL
How many flights to send up 50 RealDolls or a fab facility?
If they want to avoid pregnancy in upper space, they better send up some male, female, and transgender RealDolls. They can withstand up to 200 or more degrees, but I guess now, someone can toss a few of these expensive (about $5gs each) out the airlock. To blow these plastiques off the pad and into orbit, the $5G cost will feel like 50,000 Gs to a budget manager. I wonder what a floating RealDoll would look like tumbling through the modules of the space station. Could one of these descend unaided, and survive if provided a good angle of insertion into the atmosphere... Let's see: The angle of the dangle...
Maybe NASA will send up some 8-track, Soft Cell vinyls, a turntable, and have the crew and pax struttin' to "Sex Dwarf, isn't it nice, luring Disco Dollies to a life of vice? SEX DWARF! Isn't it NICE, lurid disco DOLLIES in a life of ICE?" (simulate the sound of the RealDoll fanny being slapped. Sorry, Marc (Almond). Then, back down on Terra Firma, another Soft Cell song comes to mind: "I wanted to tell her, but I stuck to my lies." Oh, wait, that was "Ministry".
Now, NASA won't need anymore bronze or golden plaques affixed to space craft such as Pioneer and Voyager. Just have the ion drive craft trail a few of these as "humor cards", to lighten the desire of any intellengince to visit us with ill intentions. They can add a
"Say 'hello' to 'Dolly' and to 'Jo'".
In space, no one will here these dolls scream...when the aliens perform "Deconstruction by JoJo" on these dolls.
David Syes
Two Northwest Airlines Airbus pilots might be the next runners-up for tourist flights into outer upper/space/out-of-airspace...
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid
An inquiring mind (mine) wants to know a few things.
After a Northwest Airlines Airbus passenger plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, the passengers were detained for some 3 hours, interrogated, after being ordered to shut their window covers.
So, does anyone know what is so special about Ellsworth that the windows were ordered shut? This does not seem to be the case (ordering shuttered windows) at Portland and some other bases sharing a border with commercial airports.
Could the crew and or passengers have been interrogated as to whether they shot footage or filmed any of the base during descent? Did the military confiscate their cameras, or merely look at each frame and scan every laptop for pictures of the base (or look for quickly-hidden compact flash or other media disks), or did the military fly out with them on the short hop over the hill, ensuring that NO-ONE shot any pix or opened their window covers?
Even more importantly, how can the pilot and first officer of a plane with probably more computing power than a space shuttle land 5 miles off course and onto a MILITARY base, unless they turned off the electronics or doubted the electronics, and landed by VFR, or Visual Flight Rules. And, even MORE telling, does this say the the FAA and the flight controllers were asleep at the controls?
Can such a thing happen again? Will this prompt the military to "paint" commercial aircraft to sternly warn them to get back on course? Why did not the military simultaneously call the plane AND the air traffic control tower and vector the commercial plane away? Doesn't this say that even after 9/11, the military and commercial air traffic control systems, after billions of dollars in equipment and upgrades, STILL/one again let down the public?
Is there any transparent aluminum that can substitute for glass? Or, is transparent aluminum just in Star Trek?
No, imagine when the feds realize that aluminum or steel structure home are interfering with their desire to electronically vacuum sweep a home, particularly if an after-market kit permits an owner to scan their home from across the street and tune it such that they keep internal signals from getting out, or better yet, the kit subsitutes plain-language text for random or other assembled text, such as passages from the Bible, Moby's Dick, Charlotte's Web, and such.
THAT is a product IDEA I have just thought of. I submit it to the public under Creative Commons, CopyLeft, CopyRight, and any other new, patents-negating rights-sharing scheme available to the world. If you who maybe be reading this with a productization-minded interest think you can enjoin readers or myself from this idea, you are WRONG!
Help or leave a product alone, we don't need stinking patents covering simple, easy-to-reproduce, non-novel ideas just because somebody wants to make a friggin' BUCK
How about this:
The cell phone carriers work out a plan with owners of hospitals, theaters, museums and the like so that merely ENTERING the premises forces the phone to go to vibrate if it is designed to vibrate, and silent if there is no vibrator. Alternatively, the phone can emit ONE chirp, regardless of the mode it's in, then the carrier can auto-respond to the caller, stating:
Please stand by for up to 25 seconds; we have chirped your party and you should allow them 25-45 seconds to move to a place suitable to unmask this phone call.
If the party is wheelchair bound, or is sitting on the toilet in a public place and feels embarrassed to answer whilst taking, ummm, issuing a dump, then the caller could have an autoresponder plan to let them hit a pre-designated/customized button code to send the caller a request that they give x number of minutes for the called party to reply. This way, if you are in a theater enjoying a movie, you can hit the button telling the caller to wait 45 minutes or so. This is useful in packed venues when you are conscientious enough to not crawl over patrons in those annoyingly-tight rows forcing people to scrunch up 45 degrees in the direction of travel of someone coming or going.
THIS I MY IDEA: I submit it to the public under CREATIVE COMMONS and COPYLEFT.
Unless anyone legitimately has a patent dated PRIOR TO THIS POSTING, your future developments have NO bearing or restrictive powers over my RIGHT to build a product based on what I typed here, nor do you have ANY right to restrict others to whom I just conferred this idea.
Patents applicants must be FORCED to demonstrate that their "novel" idea will be truly novel by demonstrating that the idea cannot be duplicated in under 4 hours with run-of-the-mill/generic tools.
David Syes
One way to deal with that is to "flechette" the target environment in advance of bombing. This works for and against anyone seeing such RF-blocking paper to be useful. It means that if you can flechetted a suspected target and then send over a satellite or other recon device, you can tip off your hand but force an opponent to have to move in extra defenses, move the to-be-targetted equipment, or be forced to shut it down, rendering it non-mission-capable for so long that other offensive operations can be reinforced with equipment, ordnance or devices that otherwise would be expended trying to flesh out and destroy targets.
This means anyone who can get close enough to a suspected shielded objective need only devote minimal resources on their OWN timetable to blow up said targets or flechette them, as if to torment those who think the wallpaper is going to be allowed an unfettered existence.
Now if the emissions to be masked are not normally detectable except from high orbit, then the attempt to "flechette" a target might be viable only to a satellite-owning power/nation.
David Syes,
unholy Tactical Action Officer (unofficial)
What the hell are you talking about?
They "cut" their product with bullshit, obfuscatory, no-rights-to-fix-the-code language.
C'mon, man, use your noggin. You KNOW microsoft code is buggy as hell. Circa 1996, they loaded, umm, BLOATED their Orifice (office) program with a game, Doom or Magic Carpet or something to chew up hard disk. This wasted enough space that it forced consumers and companies to buy bigger disks. Surely this had to be an act of collusion, for the disk makers would gain. OTOH, maybe it was NOT collusion, but they sure as hell gained.
As for introducing a stronger product, what do you thing about the always-chaning or subtley breaking file formats? Their coopting, raping, plundering, and shrugging off of some crucial W3C standards? It is because of this that many home-banking customers are screwed into using ms internet exploder.
I wonder if you were being tongue-in-cheek with your posting, but if not, you got my response.
David Syes
I have been saying the same things, referring to windoze as "digital crack", calling it a Trojan horse, and accusing microsoft of "corporate homicide".
COME AND SUE ME, TOO, microshaft! Regime change begins AT HOME, and I call on ALL nations to review their policies of allowing cabinet officials and low-level functionaries and administrators to have power to hamstring their nations and governments and being BOUGHT OFF by microsoft. Reminds me of the dictators, gangsters and pirates, from Capone, Coll, Galante, Lansky, Nitti, and Lupo the Wolf, as well as Aragona, Baughe, Bodulgate (the reincarnated version is working at the behest of US intelligence communities, I suspect...), Boggs, (but not Chevalier de Grammant), Every, Gibbs, North, Cheng 1 (you retain a modern version in China), and others who could be fashioned into examples of microshafts global piracy hunt to steal the hearts and minds of governments and their treasures (independence, indigenous tech teams, sovereignty, privacy, and more...), and deny them their right to SLAP, KICK, IMPALE and dump microsoft on its ASS when the time comes to "just say no" to microshaft.
I have equated microshaft of being a risk to national, government, military, corporate, personal, AND global security. I have incessantly implored China to switch to Linux, or at least rid themselves of microsoft, for microsoft (yes, lower-casing/deprecation INTENTIONAL, as always, with me) is SURELY a USA National Security Agency (and other unamed/disavowed agencies') BACKDOOR into foreign governments.
Why the HELL ELSE has the US & UK (look to "common heritage") steadfastly played one hand publicly with "reigning in" irksomesoft and then letting the henchmen and leadership of ms get away with so MUCH CRAP.
It is obvious, fortunate, and the RIGHT THING that other agencies within even the US government, as well as other nations' governments, community and business infrastructure have openly and quiely brought Linux and Open Source into their view.
It is NOT enough to "mention" Linux to microsoft. You have to PURGE yourselves of that amoral, no, IMMORAL feckless, dirtwad whining corporation that is too greedy and stupid to straighten up its act.
I found it very heartening that in one poor neighborhood, somewhere in Brazil if I recall correctly, that even the rival GANGLORDS created a "no-fire" zone so that the children could make use of the Linux-based libraries set up to give them a future. That hardened criminals can recognize the value of not destroying children reinforces the feeling I have that were I stuck in a 2-person lifeboat faced with deciding to save an undeducated, poor, questionable individual, or giving that seat to gate, ballmer, or some henchman or henchwoman running, directing, advising, or supporting microsoft, I SURE A HELL not let them have that seat over an individual who has YET to cause or encourage global corruption, local destruction of mom and pop shops (forced them to pay for licensing even when they sold naked computers and never sold nor ever held any copies of windoze), lied to juries and courts (faked video testimony), interfered with the existence or operations of peripherals devices manufacturers, etc.
If ever there is an assault on CONUS for whatever reason, it should be a water and electromagnetic tsuname that takes out ms, its backups, and its future. The feckless little campus in redmond has wrought enough damage and it needs to be broken up, it's board enjoined from starting up or sitting on the board of any more technology companies, removed from banking, real estate, and entertainment, and more.
All too many fresh new players with fresh new ideas are anxiously awaiting their turn to play or work on the tech field. So long as they are stymied by microshaft, we shall NOT see innovation (contrary to the assertion of ms about their own "innovations" which really are mostly acquisitions rather than internal, original developments), we shall NOT see choice, and we shall NOT have stable computing.